Serious failings in Bristol's council housing says Government regulator

There are ‘serious failings’ in the standard and management of Bristol’s council housing - and the city is one of four across the country to be given a damning judgement by the Government’s social housing regulator today.

Council chiefs have apologised to every single council tenant in the city for the failings, which have been outlined in a scathing report from the Regulator of Social Housing. The report found there is a huge backlog of repairs to around half the council homes in the city, but even more worryingly, there are thousands of overdue fire safety ‘actions’, and the council could not show that it is meeting carbon monoxide safety requirements for almost all its 26,700 homes.

The council has admitted dealing with the backlog will take so many years council chiefs can’t even put a target date by which things will be sorted, meeting the Government’s new standards will take ‘tens of millions’ of pounds, and they and other local authorities are now appealing to the new Labour Government for extra funding to sort out the homes.

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The Regulator of Social Housing is the Government’s official authority to ensure council and housing association properties are up to legal standard - and their damning judgement makes it clear that Bristol City Council, as a council housing landlord, is failing to meet the legal requirements.

Bristol’s judgement comes on the same day the RSH issued similar judgements on councils in Guildford, Sheffield and Cambridge, but Bristol’s was the largest scale of failure.

The RSH said it found that: “Bristol City Council could not evidence that it is meeting carbon monoxide safety requirements for over 22,000 homes (out of 26,700 total homes). It also reported 1,900 open damp and mould cases, more than 16,000 overdue repairs and 3,000 overdue fire safety actions. In addition, the council does not have up-to-date data about the condition of tenants’ homes,” the judgement said.

Responding to the judgement today, Bristol City Council said the number of overdue repairs was more like 11,000 - the 16,000 figure included occasions when council housing tenants reported the same issue more than once.

Bristol City Council, Guildford Borough Council, Octavia Housing and Sheffield City Council have each been given a C3 grading by RSH, which means there are ‘serious failings and they need to make significant improvements’. This is the first time RSH has published consumer gradings for social landlords, following the changes to its role in April 2024.

What does the Regulator say?

“Landlords must provide safe and decent homes for tenants, have an effective complaints process, and put things right when there are problems,” said the chief of regulatory engagement at the RSH, Kate Dodsworth.

“The judgements we published today show that each of these landlords have issues which they need to address promptly. All landlords need to make sure they deliver the outcomes in our standards and inform us when there are material issues.

“Our new approach to regulation, which started in April, gives us new tools to scrutinise landlords’ performance and, where there are issues, drive them to deliver long-term improvements for the benefit of tenants,” she added.

The RSH judgement doesn’t relate to structural issues that caused the evacuation of Barton House in Barton Hill last year, but relates more to the huge backlog of general repairs, mould and damp issues, and the general condition of council housing both in tower blocks and in housing estates across the city.

Perhaps most damning is the failures found in record-keeping, with council housing officers struggling to be able to tell the Government regulators how many and which homes have the proper carbon monoxide safety measures, or the thousands of issues raised by fire safety inspections that haven’t been dealt with.

The RSH judgement concluded: “Bristol has reported to us that it has around 3,000 fire remedial actions outstanding and has reported low confidence in its data management relating to fire safety. Bristol CC has, to date, only provided limited information on its mitigation of fire safety risks for the period while remedial actions and any outstanding works are completed.”

Who is responsible?

Council chiefs at City Hall said the issues now with the city’s council housing stock date back years - and have been caused by decades of underfunding and the council failing to keep on top of repairing an ageing housing stock.

Bristol City Council was run by a mix of parties for the past 25 years, with Labour and the Liberal Democrats in charge, before the city’s first directly elected mayor George Ferguson took over for three and a half years. For eight years since 2016 until this May, Mayor Marvin Rees and Labour ran Bristol’s housing stock, before the mayoral position ended and a committee system began, headed by the Greens as the largest party.

What do council chiefs say?

The man who has led Bristol City Council for the past two months, Cllr Tony Dyer (Green, Southville), apologised. “We apologise to all council tenants and those who live in our council owned homes,” he said. All residents should expect us, as a landlord, to deliver a high standard of housing and comply with national requirements, and we share these expectations.

“We recognise that this news will likely cause concern for some residents. We do not wish for anyone to worry but recognise that better communication and further information is needed to ensure all residents are clear on what this judgement means and how we intend to fix the issues we face.

“Both our own internal assessment and that of the regulator sets out clearly where the gaps in our arrangements exist and provide a blueprint for improvement. We accept the findings of the regulator’s review and have committed to fix the issues we face in the shortest possible time.

“Whilst we accept the failings in our own services, we also acknowledge the national challenge councils face in catching up with changing regulation at a time when funding is scarce. Our position is not unique, and we join a number of other local authorities who have found their arrangements to be inadequate to meet the necessary national standards for social housing,” he added.

“This offers us the opportunity to learn from others and take on board the approaches they have developed to deliver decent, safe homes to a high level of regulatory compliance. It also indicates that across the country, a far higher awareness of the need for consistent and dependable housing safety is under way, and we agree that this is long overdue.

“As we look internally at improving our arrangements to meeting a high level of regulatory compliance, we also look outwards, towards government, with an open hand to work together to deliver decent homes for social tenants,” he added.

The man who chairs the new committee of councillors responsible for homes and housing is Cllr Barry Parsons. He said the council self-referred to the Regulator when it became clear that the council would seriously fail a new set of standards that came into force in April. The previous council regime commissioned Savills to undertake a review of the council’s housing department last November, and that concluded the council had a serious issue.

“Our role as a social landlord is to ensure we’re providing people with safe and decent homes that are places of sanctuary, that nurture and protect people’s wellbeing,” said Cllr Parsons. “It’s clear that we’re not hitting a high enough standard in this role and for that we apologise to all council tenants and those who live in our council owned homes.

“We have not waited for this judgement to begin putting in place the necessary action required to raise our standards. Our priority is focusing on any safety issues, which means addressing the backlog of some of the regular checks we must undertake as a landlord. We are also undertaking a programme of repairs and refurbishment. Our record-keeping is significantly below where it should be and we are addressing this with urgency, to ensure that we are able to provide residents with relevant information about their homes.

“We have written to all residents living in council homes to share this update with them. Throughout this process we will maintain regular communication with residents and also expand on the opportunities available for people to speak with us directly to share their views. Our approach must be one that is informed by the needs of residents living in council owned homes so we can provide decent and safe homes,” he added.